Joan As Police Woman: Manchester Academy 2
14.12.08
Joan As Police Woman invited an emotional crowd to Academy 2 in December that included sickly couples huddled in corners, licking each other’s noses in this case, like feverish dogs waiting for prey. Joan Wasser enters stage right with her musical companions and you can hear the romantic fingers click into place.
This final gig of her new album ‘To Survive’ tour leaves her teary eyed too, as her honest lovelorn ballads spill into the room that include forays into soul, blues and country.
Joan, as a girl that used to configure the riffs to Axis: Bold as Love in her bedroom, presented ‘Fire’ to the Manchester crowd. It went down with the petting couples in the audience, and seems to ignite a powerful memory in Wasser. Her version is impressive and breaks up her solemn, humbling material from the new record. The press has focused on themes of empowerment, loss and beauty for Joan As Police Woman, as her new album 'To Survive' features a Pre-Rapheliate woman on the cover with a crooked nose – i.e she is gorgeous, brave and flawed – as we all are! How bloody bright.
To focus on this would canonize the artist before they deserve it, as you trawl the internet for description and downloads. So go and see her show. Wasser seems earnest and polite, dropping in a few anecdotes here and there about how she visited ‘Trimark? Tripark?’ (and the crowd hailed… ‘Primark’) earlier in the day for some bargain bags (did someone slip her the brown envelope?) Her voice is heartbreaking and provides us with one of the most promising soul/blues voices of the moment. Her ballads may be flecked with the uncompromising tragedy of Buckley, but it is her voice that lulls your defences, as Lennox or the brilliant Scout Niblett’s would.
‘To Be Lonely’ is particularly ethereal as she sings, ‘this is the one I would die for, to be lonely’ and flows highlights through Keeper Of The Flame and Holiday.
For her voice and her honesty, Joan Wasser is a deserved success.
Words: Alice White
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